Some gear types need special consideration as they naturally force the survey designer into different modes of thinking and have limitations on the type of data collected. To our mind, the biggest distinction in sampling gears for marine biota, for design considerations at least, is whether the gear collects a single observation point from each deployment (e.g. a grab) or whether it collects many (e.g. an AUV). There is some grey area here: we usually class BRUVs as point collection methods and under certain circumstances (outlined below) we might also class trawls also as point source methods. BRUVs introduce uncertainty in the exact area sampled due to variation in bait plumes with different current conditions. Trawls integrate spatially contiguous locations along a transect by means of combining the catch in a cod-end (e.g. Foster et al., 2019). Trawls also introduce uncertainty in the exact area sampled due to the behaviour of the trawl (‘digging in’ or bouncing off the sea bed) and sometimes not knowing where the trawl has touched/left bottom or where the net is. These can be particular concerns in deeper water without a well-functioning positioning device (USBL).
When the spatial scale of the sample-frame is geographically large, in relation to the transect size (e.g. AUV or trawl) or field-of-view (e.g. BRUV), then all these methods can be treated as point collection and standard survey design principles apply. However, when the sample frame is geographically small in relation to the size of the area sampled by the sampling gear, then the position of the observation within the sampling unit becomes important as biota from two separate samples may be spatially close. The only design advice in the literature for the gear types considered in this field manual package, that we are aware of, is to try and space samples well apart in space within the objectives of the study (Foster et al., 2014). However, recent Marine Biodiversity Hub research aims to provide greater utility around this (see Foster et al. 2019). Developed methods are implemented into the R-package MBHdesign.
There are more considerations when designing a transect-based survey when the transect footprint is large relative to the sample frame (e.g. AUV, ROV and towed video). Chiefly, one needs to consider how long the transects are and in what direction the transects should be performed. Our intuition tells us that, logistics aside, the length of the transect should be dependent on the spatial properties of the biota being surveyed. Biota with large spatial autocorrelation should be sampled with many short transects, whereas biota with short spatial autocorrelation could be sampled with longer transects. See Foster et al. (2014) for an example of identifying length and direction of spatial autocorrelation from image-based transect data and see Foster et al. (2019) for how to randomise, with spatial balance, transect samples. Of course, it may be cheaper to deploy the image-based sampling platform for longer and then simply sub-sample or account for the autocorrelation within an analysis model, but the reasoning will still provide advantages. In any situation, care needs to be taken in the analysis to account for this autocorrelation (see next paragraph for further elaboration). The direction of the transects might be gear dependent – for example it may be ‘safer’ to take transects down-slope or across-slope; or more efficient to tow into the prevailing current. However, irrespective of the restrictions on direction the design should aim to cover the study area as evenly as possible. Image-based transects have further considerations – how much effort to place in scoring each image versus how much effort to place in scoring more images. Perkins et al. (2016) suggests that this too depends on the spatial properties of the biota under consideration and suggests apportioning effort according to these properties.
Whilst this chapter is about statistical design, we feel it important to briefly mention statistical analysis of survey data, especially that resulting from transect-based sampling platforms. These produce data that are spatially close to each other, often very close. This naturally raises concerns about spatial autocorrelation and its impact on an analysis. Our advice for these platforms is to use geostatistical models (e.g. Diggle and Ribeiro, 2007; Banerjee et al., 2004). These naturally account for the spatial dependence between observations and adjust measures of uncertainty accordingly. This is not an easy approach and involves a steep learning curve for many practitioners. However, it does circumvent the unfortunate (and dangerous) consequence of falsely considering that there is less uncertainty in the data than there actually is, which is effectively what happens when one assumes that geographically close observations are independent. Subsetting the individual observations within a transect is likely to have some beneficial effect on mitigating autocorrelation (e.g. Mitchell et al., 2017). However, doing so presupposes that the range of the autocorrelation is less than the distance between the subsetted observations.